Mike Whaley: ‘Shamus the Unexpected’ shines through for Hawks

The Maine Class A wrestling championship was over and Marshwood High School senior Shamus McManus was flashing a 1,000-watt smile.

The unlikeliest of heroes, McManus, a first-year varsity wrestler, was beaming after his team had won its third straight Class A title. On top of that, the sturdy senior had gone 3-0 to improbably win the 145-pound title and received the John Pelletier Award as the tournament’s outstanding wrestler.

Marshwood winning was expected, but McManus a state champ and outstanding wrestler? That was a serious longshot.

“I came in here and I wasn’t even sure if I was going to place,” said McManus, who had been a runner-up at the Western regional the previous week in Sanford. “The kid who got third beat me before. (Noble’s) Otto (Keisker) in the regional pinned me in 42 seconds in the final. I was really thinking fourth at best. It all came together today.”

Did it ever.

McManus won his first match by tech fall, 20-5, over Skyler Bang of Edward Little. In the semis he was faced off with Eastern No. 1 Kaleb Brown of Skowhegan. McManus fell behind 5-0, but never gave up.

“I kept going,” he said. “Eventually he got tired out. I outlasted him, I guess. I kept going and pushing.”

It was a jaw-dropper. He came back to win, 7-6.

Then onto the final against Zac Richard of Massabesic, who had upset Keisker. Marshwood coach Matt Rix said the two were in the locker room before the championship match and Richard joked that McManus may have beaten Brown but he was going to have to settle for second.

Wrong.

Again, McManus fell behind. He was down 3-1 going into the third period and came back to tie it up at 3-all and force overtime. In OT, he went right after Richard and took him down in the first 20 seconds for the win — and a state title.

“I just kept working,” said McManus, who spent three years on the JV team before his chance at varsity came in his final year. “The opportunities were there and I took them.”

It was his first tournament win in a Marshwood singlet.

“I’ve never really wrestled from behind before today,” he said.

McManus’s win highlighted a dominating performance by the Hawks, who won the title with 179 points, light years ahead of runner-up Massabesic (127). McManus was one of five Marshwood state champs, along with Jackson Howarth (152), Bradley Beaulieu (113), Cody Hughes (160) and Brett Gerry (182). Ten of the Hawks’ 12 wrestlers placed.

“It’s a different day,” said Rix. “He came to wrestle. This is possibly his last opportunity as a senior and first year on varsity. He’s been sitting in the wings and waiting for his opportunity to step up. It was a great team effort all around.”

McManus was relentless in winning all three matches, including the final two in coming from behind.

“He kept plugging away,” Rix said. “He kept plugging at it. Conditioning. We preach that in a six-minute match, get them into the third period. We win so many matches in the third period. He was confident and he got into overtime and, wow, we can win this. He wasn’t going to be happy with second.”

Marshwood had its know quantities with Hughes, Howarth, Gerry and standout freshman Beaulieu, as well as Killian Murphy and Darren LaPointe.

But the likes of McManus, classmate Josh Marks (120) and junior Sam Hebert (138) were making their varsity debuts after two or three years in the JV trenches. Would they come through? McManus stunned everyone, while Marks was runner-up at 120 and Hebert was third at 138. Sophomore Eric Glidden, another first-year varsity wrestler, was a runner-up at 126. He cashed in on a first-round upset of the Eastern No. 1 from Skowhegan to propel him to the final.

“He was in the good side (of the bracket),” Rix said of Glidden. “The best time to catch No. 1 is the first match of the day. They don’t expect it. Sometimes they downplay No. 4. He went out there and beat him in overtime. That was huge. It gets a little momentum going, a big win like that.”

McManus, smiling all the while, said, “We always have a solid group of JVs. We’re always at practice. We help out. The more people there are at practice, it makes it better. There are people you can work with. Everyone wrestles differently, so you get to see different people’s style.”

“The kids who were JV last year — like Shamus,” said junior teammate Jackson Howarth, a state champ at 152, “nobody probably knows who he is.”

Well, they do now.

Mike Whaley is the Sports Editor for Foster’s Daily Democrat and the Rochester Times. He can be reached at mwhaley@fosters.com or 603-516-2949.